"If you were ill, I should try and do my duty."
He turned abruptly and left her; he had hoped for something more, and yet what reason had he to expect it?
When Jean got better and required less attention, Mrs. Dorriman found that all her powers were wanted in a different direction.
Between a spoiled undisciplined nature like that of Grace Rivers, and a character whose salient feature was love of power, such as Mr. Sandford possessed, it was impossible for the constant association to go without friction. Margaret was in a state of perpetual alarm, giving her sister right always, from habit and unreasoning affection, and therefore no real use to her, and the first day Mrs. Dorriman found herself able to take up her round of daily duties, she found Grace, not Margaret, waiting to speak to her, Grace in a state of excitement she did not try to repress, who plunged into the subject of her troubles with an abandonment and vehemence which went far to frighten the gentle little woman, who was expected to console, and understand, and sympathise all in a breath, at a moment's notice.
"Your brother hates me, why does he have us here?" Grace began; "it is cruel! Why does he not let us go where at any rate we might be free and lead our own lives, Margaret and I."
She paced up and down, her hands clasped before her, an angry flush upon her face—pausing every now and again to look at Mrs. Dorriman whose delicate forehead was ruffled, and whose attitude spoke of weariness.
"Has any thing happened? What is the matter? What has gone wrong?" Her voice sounded cold and unsympathetic to Grace's ears. It acted like a drop of cold water on heated iron.
"Of course you don't care," she burst out with, "you care for nothing; nothing seems to move you; nothing rouses you; but can you not see my sister and I are miserable and wretched?"
"Grace," said the elder woman, and her voice was full of real kindness, "would you mind sitting down, it tries me sorely to see you dashing about this way, and—I'm not very strong just now. I have had a good deal of fatigue lately."
"I am sorry," the girl said in somewhat a hard tone, throwing herself into a chair, feeling that all she had to say was more difficult to say when she was deprived of her manner of saying it.